Historic Pensacola

This is old news, unfortunately.  However, aged news becomes history, and history is what I peddle.  The University Press of Florida recently published Historic Pensacola, co-authored by history professor Jay Clune and archaeology professor Margo Stringfield of the University of West Florida.  Dr. Clune and Prof. Stringfield did a book-signing at the T. T. Wentworth Museum in downtown Pensacola a month or so ago, for which I hastily leapt in line.  Support local history!

Recycling comes to Escambia County

The Escambia County Utilities Authority is finally offering curbside recycling services.

Deneen on transportation stimulus and road dependency

"It is either farce or tragedy that we will invest further in an economic model premised on permanently cheap and readily available energy sources at a time when we have had our first taste of the reality and experience of peak oil. We will sink more of our increasingly limited funds (or, increasingly limited ability to borrow funds that we can no longer create) in maintaining or expanding a transportation system that, for a few months at least in the last year, was decreasingly being used as the price of energy rose so high to be a disincentive to travel. We saw - and continue to see - the housing of the far-flung suburbs losing its value as people began to re-think the wisdom of purchasing more house at distances that not only entailed lengthy and deadening commutes, but which were becoming so cost prohibitive to force people - for the first time in decades - to consider distance to be a factor in considerations of where to live. And, we are likely to sink more money into a transportation system at just the moment we witness the collapse of America's automobile industry - the industry for which the massive investment in roads was largely built to support and expand."

-Patrick Deneen, "Road Dependency"

Favored beer of the moment

Terrapin Wake 'N' Bake Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout.  Beer Advocate gives it an A.  C'mon, who doesn't love a turtle making cookies and drinking beer at dawn?  Terrapin combines several of my favorite treats into one bottle, and it does so in a complex, vibrant fashion.  This is a beer to sip and appreciate.

I love this word: kerfuffle.

Historical Resources in Pensacola

View Larger Map

I've begun work on this Google Map to trace historical resources (archives, museums, etc.) in Pensacola, specifically pertaining to Pensacola and Northwest Florida history.

Pensacola street view

Google Maps has finally created street views of Pensacola.  While we're at it, here's a travel map posted by jakbikesdc:

View Larger Map

It would be great to see the Pensacola Historical Society or Pensacola Historic Village create such a map of historic Pensacola.

Antonioni, eat your heart out!

Far East Mini Meet December 2008 from Joshua Clifton on Vimeo.

My brother Josh and his wife Sarah filmed and edited this recent excursion with the Far East Mini Club (their motto: "No compensation needed.") Josh writes: "This trip started out at NAF Atsugi with our club and Goonies@mini, a Tokyo based Japanese club. We worked our way out to Lake Miyagase and then ate at a wonderful restaurant. Lots of nice twisty roads and beautiful scenery." Killer soundtrack, of course. Who would expect anything less from the former leader of Daigaku?

A season in Hades

Nevermind the snow; it's been a hot and muggy winter in Pensacola. We've been running our air conditioner. So much for my sweater collection.

Snow on the Gulf Coast!

A true Christmas miracle! Michael Kunzelman of the Associated Press writes, "A rare snowfall blanketed south Louisiana and parts of Mississippi Thursday, closing schools, government offices and bridges, triggering crashes on major highways and leaving thousands of people without power." (Photo: Jackson Square in New Orleans. Full story here.) Can Pensacola look forward to such majestic wintry precipitation? It would be nice.

[Originally posted at ze life and ze times.]

Things that make me happy...

...the double-disc reissue of Pavement's Brighten the Corners.

Rosen on the Kindle and its kin

"We are so eager to explore what these new [electronic/digital] reading devices devices do—particularly what they do better than the printed book—that we ignore the more rudimentary but important human questions: the tactile pleasures of the printed page versus the screen; the new risks of distraction posed by a device with a wireless Internet connection; the difference between reading a book in two-page spreads and reading a story on one flashing screen-display after another. Kindle and other e-readers are marvelous technologies of convenience, but they are no replacement for the book."

- Christine Rosen, "People of the Screen," The New Atlantis, Fall 2008

Pascal and the precipice

"We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it."

-Pascal, Pensees

Currently listening to...

...and three cheers for unassuming, melancholy Pennsylvania bedroom pop on vinyl.

Favored beer of the moment

Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome Ale - a Christmastime treat!